Awake
by muchtvs
Summary: Future oneshot. Takes place at the end of season three. Posted on my LJ in October, so it may not be new to much of anyone.


Disclaimer: Not mine. I was hoping for Christmas...

Author's note: I wanted to let everyone know I am alive and trying to get out of a slump to finish _Best of Intentions_. This one-shot is set at the end of season three. I suppose it could be called a future story. Thanks for reading. Crash beta'd...cause she has NOTHING else to do.

Also, I never know what rating to go with. This is definitely PG-13. If you are young, you may want to skip this one. Swearing, use of the F-bomb, adult concepts,

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**Awake**

**A one-shot.**

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When Ryan wakes up the first time, he's not sure his hand is made from flesh. It feels of rubber and foam and pliable things, like Playdough and molding clay and soft taffy. He waves his left hand in front of his face and studies his fingers carefully as he slowly fans them, one after another.

"Ryan, you're awake!"

He stops moving his fingers and looks up at Sandy and thinks to himself, 'Am I? Awake? I'm not sure.'

When did Sandy get so tall?

"I'm sorry, Ryan," Sandy says, his voice fading even as his face becomes clearer, closer. "I didn't see the other car."

Was there _another_ car, wonders Ryan?

Funny, he doesn't even remember his own.

How many cars were there total and if a car departs San Diego driving 120 miles an hour and another car leaves San Bernardino at a rate of speed of 15 miles an hour, which car will get to LAX first?

It was a logic problem that he once solved in his ridiculously easy advanced algebra class. Fucking worthless Chino Hills.

Sandy must have a few friends over because now a couple more oddly tall people, a man and a woman, are looking down at him, studying him.

The woman says his name, but Ryan ignores her.

Blinks instead at Sandy.

Things don't match. Things aren't right.

This isn't the house. This isn't where he thinks he should be.

He'd better get up and figure it all out.

His left arm may be rubber but his right is made of stone. He can't lift it, no matter how hard he tries. His body is fast-drying cement, heavy, cumbersome.

In slow motion he tells Sandy, "I forget which car gets to the airport first. I should know the answer."

"Don't worry about it Ryan, I'm right here. You're gonna' be ok. It's just the Morphine."

Ahhhh, that explains it.

Only actually, it doesn't.

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Someone's fucking with his face and it's annoying and if he could just move a few of his fingers, that shit would cease pronto.

Move.

Moving.

He's moving.

He thinks maybe that he's a giant roller skate.

He can feel wheels beneath him, gliding quickly along a smooth surface.

A disembodied voice tells him, "We're on our way to surgery, Ryan. Just relax and don't fight the oxygen."

Fight oxygen?

What the fuck?

Even he can't beat down air.

And what was it that he was trying to remember about Sandy and a fast car and LAX?

Butter.

He wonders if his body is made out of butter.

He listens to someone counting backwards as he melts into a liquid state.

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Kirsten knows it's bad when she finds Sandy all alone, red eyed, sitting on a gurney, in a corner of the emergency room.

He looks pretty good, all things considered. Considering that a doctor just told her he has a concussion and that they're keeping him overnight for observation and additional tests, because his head broke the driver's side panel of glass and by the looks of Sandy's face, his left cheek broke his head's fall.

She kisses him and rubs his arm and then asks a shaky, "Where's Ryan?"

Sandy's doctor, after explaining what was wrong with her husband, feigned ignorance about her foster son and a rushed nurse told her it would be just a minute and someone would come and talk to them.

"They took Ryan away," is all Sandy tells her and that will have to do for now, as Kirsten waits for a more reasonable explanation.

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Sex is great.

Sex is so much better than what he remembers. He watches Summer prance around naked, her magnificent boobs leading the parade and he asks himself, has any man ever had it better?

Ever?

And really, could it even be possible to have it better than this?

"Kirsten's on the phone," Summer says, looking startled and holding his cell out to him.

He almost tells her that answering the phone naked when his mother is calling is really a downer in the foreplay department, but something about the way Summer is standing so rigid and watching him so carefully makes Seth forego the comment and take an extra deep breath before reaching out to his girlfriend for the cell. He glances up at her questioningly before asking a hesitant, "Mom?" into the phone.

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Kirsten assumed it was bad, but now she knows first hand it's even worse, as a woman in a white lab coat calmly recites about a million things wrong with Ryan.

A few words stand out and poke painfully, like barbed wire, into her. Words like massive internal bleeding and collapsed lung and multiple compound fractures of the ulna and radius.

All this, because Sandy wanted some ice cream after dinner and Ryan had agreed to humor him.

"Do you have any questions Mrs. Cohen?" The woman inquires. She's olive skinned and speaks with an accent and Cohen comes out sounding more like Co-Hen.

"Is Ryan going to live?" Seth asks.

Kirsten supposes somebody had to ask that question, because, shit almighty, it sure doesn't sound like it.

"I really can't answer that," the woman tells Seth.

Summer whispers under her breath, "Stupid bitch, then why the hell even bother to ask for questions."

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The three of them sit in limbo, waiting for something to happen, Sandy to be moved to a room, any word at all on Ryan.

"Summer and I were having sex," Seth blurts out, his hands racing ahead of his mouth, spinning and waving and trying to solo narrate. "When you called. We were upstairs, in her bedroom, having complete and total sex."

Kirsten glances warily at a mortified Summer and the girl shrugs helplessly back at her.

"I'm sorry, I don't know why I said that," Seth settles down, slumps in his seat.

Kirsten clears her throat and sits up a little straighter and asks, "Are you using protection?"

"Most definitely," Summer assures her.

Kirsten nods and they all reflect on how little time that strange and uncomfortable conversation actually took, and how much longer they still have left to wait.

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A policeman interviews Sandy in his new hospital room as Kirsten stands by the bed, listening.

"I don't…I don't know…" Sandy shakes his head. "I'm having trouble remembering specifics. I have no idea where the car came from. I looked both ways before I changed lanes. The other car was… just… there. It came out of nowhere."

The accident happened in a construction zone, so establishing speed is extra imperative and Kirsten can tell that the policeman has already decided that Sandy was probably driving too fast, which he most likely was, because who even pays attention to orange cones at 8:00 o'clock at night, when workers in reflective vests have already been home for hours.

The cop must know Sandy, because when the questions finally stop, his tone changes and the man respectfully asks her husband, "How's your son doing, Mr. Cohen?"

"We haven't had any word yet," Sandy answers, distant and looking away.

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They've all talked about it and have come to a mutual agreement that Marissa should be left in the dark. She's hundreds of miles from them anyway, off with her mother visiting Kaitlin, and what good can come from a late night phone call telling her that her boyfriend has been in surgery for three hours with, perhaps, only a dubious chance of survival.

Summer was the deciding vote.

"It'd be too hard," she says, with tears in her eyes, "to know that something was wrong with Seth, and I couldn't be there for him."

But it won't take long, before Marissa starts calling. Ryan's cell is unaccounted for and probably destroyed in the accident, but Summer has hers and if she gets desperate, Marissa will start calling Seth, so they need a plan, a course of action, until Ryan's girlfriend is back in Newport.

"Sandy took the boys camping?" Kirsten offers. "No phones, just the three of them."

Turning towards her, Seth says, "That's the stupidest suggestion I've ever heard. Camping? With…Dad? Mom, please, we've never even driven through a state park."

Summer slaps him, "Shut-up Cohen. I don't hear you coming up with a better idea."

Sandy sleeps through the conspiracy, Kirsten never letting go of his hand.

When a nurse comes to check on him, he doesn't wake up as much or as well as she thinks he should and the next thing Kirsten knows, a doctor is in the room and evidently some things, like a second CAT Scan, can't wait any longer. Sandy is rolled off to God knows where and Kirsten thinks she knows now how lost and powerless Sandy must have felt in the emergency room when he told her, _"They took Ryan away."_

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"Let's have a seat," says the guy in the paper surgical cap and Seth wonders just how many good conversations start out with those words.

"We were able to stop the majority of the internal bleeding but we had some complications, difficulty keeping Ryan's blood pressure stable, and we had to stop the surgery before we repaired his arm. We're working right now at stabilizing his vitals, than we'll determine whether or not to proceed with any further surgery tonight. I need to warn you that delaying the operation on Ryan's arm is a concern. Blood flow to his fingers and wrist is already significantly compromised. "

"Um," Kirsten scratches the top of her forehead, "I don't really understand what you're saying. Are you telling us that Ryan is going to be all right?"

The doctor stares her straight in the eye, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Cohen, I can't tell you what you want to hear, which is that there is a one-hundred percent chance that your son will recover. What I can tell you is that there was extensive internal bleeding and we did the best we could to stabilize him before surgery, but unfortunately, once the operation started, we just didn't have enough time to accomplish everything we needed to before his blood pressure plummeted. Best-case scenario, we get Ryan back into surgery within the next hour and fix that arm. That's contingent upon his vitals stabilizing, and right now, both his blood pressure and body temperature are dangerously low. I do need to warn you that without surgery in the next two to four hours, we may be looking at Ryan losing some functioning in his right forearm due to nerve damage or tissue death. Even with surgery, there's the worst-case scenario of massive infection, which could lead to a partial amputation. I'm not trying to scare you Mrs. Cohen, I'm trying to make you understand that your son is in very critical condition. He's fighting a difficult battle on several fronts. Even if it means risking Ryan's arm, I won't operate on a child knowing that he's most likely going to arrest due to blood loss."

Seth is a block of ice, cold and hard and suddenly frozen.

'Oh Shit' and 'Oh Fuck' have gotten married and their child, 'Ohfuckingshit' is running pell-mell across his brain, clanging a pan with a spoon. He feels his heart go sub-zero and he swallows and looks at his mom for guidance, mostly 'cause his dad isn't here.

Kirsten's mouth hangs open but there doesn't seem to be any words coming out of it.

Speaking softly, Summer asks, "Can we see him?"

"I can let Mrs. Cohen in, for a few minutes," the doctor answers, standing up. He looks apologetically at Seth and adds, "I'm sorry, I realize this isn't the news you were hoping for and I've painted a grim picture. But I think it's important to be honest with a patient's family."

Seth nods, not necessarily because he is fully comprehending what the dude is saying, but because for some reason the guy is concentrating on him now.

Maybe it's because his mom has already started to cry.

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The nurse who leads her to Ryan is heavy-set, talks with the most stereotypical southern dialect Kirsten has ever heard, and waddles from side to side. But she's so attentive and kindhearted, taking Kirsten's hand without even asking, calling her names like sweetheart and honey, that Kirsten thinks that maybe this woman is the most compassionate person she's ever met.

"We have to tuck this in, honey" the nurse tells her, and tenderly smoothes back errant wisps of Kirsten's hair under the surgical hair net. Kirsten, usually so independent, allows the woman free rein of her body, following directions to hold her arms out as the nurse slides a gown over her clothing. By the time the woman is done with her, everything is covered up, pants, shoes, everything, even Kirsten's mouth is protected, with a thin mask that ties at the back of her head.

"Is Ryan dying?" Kirsten asks hesitantly; because certainly this isn't normal, to let her into Recovery at this crucial time, to go to all this trouble, just to let her see Ryan for a few minutes. Kirsten can feel tears forming again in the corner of her eyes and the longer the nurse waits to answer the question, the more dread piles on top of her, threatening to topple her, like a mud slide, tearing down a hilltop after a flash flood, destroying everything in its path.

"We're doing every single solitary thing we can for your boy, sweetheart," the nurse assures her. "I think what he needs most is to hear his momma's voice, telling him to hang on." She smiles at Kirsten. "All this medicine is hooey compared to a mother's love."

"Ryan's not my real son," Kirsten confesses, dropping her head, feeling helpless and inadequate and in many ways, an imposter. "I'm not his biological mother."

"Well your eyes say different," the woman answers. "I've seen a million mothers' eyes honey, and the ones I'm looking at right now are just about as sad and concerned and caring as I've seen. I'm not privy to your family's circumstances, but I imagine you're more of a mother to that child than even you realize."

Kirsten's so glad, minutes later, as she stands by Ryan's gurney, to find that the nurse has stayed with her, lightly tapping her back and continuing to hold her hand and pointing to a monitor above Ryan's head while telling her, "Look, see that number? See how it's climbing up? That's exactly what we need. Keep talking to him, honey. He knows his mother is here with him."

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Seth won't leave Kirsten alone, won't stop asking questions, won't stop drilling her for information.

But she doesn't want to tell him about Ryan's eyes being taped shut and how he looked so chalky white, his facial features stretched and altered by various pieces of medical equipment. She doesn't want to tell her son that she barely recognized Ryan and that she could sense, by the way that all the hospital personnel avoided her eyes that they believed that their patient might not live.

"Mom?" Seth pleads. "Please, tell me something. Is he ok?"

Summer intercedes, tugging at her boyfriend's arm, saying, "Come on Cohen, let's give your mom some room to breathe."

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They won't let her back in to see Ryan, so Kirsten wanders away from the surgical unit and returns to Sandy's room. It's empty and a young nurse informs her that there's a delay at CAT Scan.

"It always takes forever," the girl says, rolling her eyes. "Everything around here is slow, slow, slow. I'll call down to Surgical when your husband comes back, Mrs. Cohen. Are you all right? Can I get you something?"

"No, thank you," Kirsten answers, drifts back down the hallway.

She feels as if she's an airplane, sailing through a sea of puffy clouds.

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Summer and Seth hold each other's hands and Kirsten watches the clock tick. An hour and thirty-five minutes have passed since the doctor first spoke to her about Ryan.

Two hours the doctor told her, two hours before permanent damage is done to Ryan's arm. Two hours, maybe three, or with a little luck, four. She wonders what it will be like for him, when he wakes up and realizes that he can no longer use his right arm. She tries to convince herself that it'll be enough for him that he lived. That he'll understand that having his life is more valuable than being able to use his right arm. But deep down, she's praying that Sandy will be the one that breaks the news to Ryan. That she'll be spared that horror.

"Mrs. Cohen?" A different doctor appears in the waiting room, followed by the surgeon that first apprised them of Ryan's condition. Matching bookends of imposing mint green scrubs. The new doctor is younger, more personable. He gets down on one knee, balances himself by putting a hand on the arm of Kirsten's chair.

"My name is Dr. Salvo, Mrs. Cohen. I'm an orthopedic surgeon. I specialize in vascular repair. I can save your kid's arm. I need your permission to operate."

The other doctor shakes his head, whispers aggressively, "Terry, slow down," as he circles to the other side of Kirsten. "Mrs. Cohen, I'm standing by my original diagnosis that further surgery at this time could jeopardize your son's life."

"His blood pressure and temp are up and holding steady within the low range of acceptable," Salvo counters, looking over his shoulder at his colleague. He turns back to Kirsten and tells her, "I wouldn't be out here proposing to operate on Ryan if I didn't think I could save both his life and his arm. I can do this Mrs. Cohen. I just need you to trust me. I know that this situation is intimidating, but I promise, I can do this. I wouldn't be putting you in this position if I wasn't sure."

He holds a clipboard out towards her.

"We need to give it another hour," the other doctor interjects. "Mrs. Cohen, your son is far from stable. Once he starts to bleed out again, it will be only be a matter of minutes before we're right back where we started. I'm in complete disagreement with Dr. Salvo's recommendation for immediate surgery."

"Mom."

Seth's voice is wavy, full of exhausted fluctuation.

"Mom. Sign the paper."

Kirsten exchanges desperate looks back and forth between the doctors.

"Mom," Seth urges. "Please, sign the paper. You have to let this guy operate on Ryan's arm."

"Seth!" Kirsten says his name fast and loud, so sharp that no one in the room moves or says anything further. Kirsten breaks her own awkward silence. "Are you listening to what they are saying, Seth? Do you understand the choice you're asking me to make?"

She explains to both the men, "I can't do this by myself. You have to give me time to talk to my husband. I can't make this decision alone."

"We're out of time," Dr. Salvo states softly but forceful. "We've waited as long as we can Mrs. Cohen. Ryan doesn't have any more time. If we're going to save his arm, we need to bring him into surgery right now. If we delay much longer, I can't guarantee that the damage from loss of blood to the limb, wrist, hand and fingers won't be permanent."

Kirsten drops her head.

Seth takes the clipboard from the doctor, extends it towards Kirsten.

"Mom," he begs, "Please. Sign the paper. Dad would sign the paper."

She closes her eyes and thinks about Sandy and all the times that he's taken risks and said to hell with convention and how every time, somehow, some way, he lands on his feet.

"Mom…"

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She watches the entrance of the waiting room, hands clenching and unclenching.

She's a leaking dam, with doubts and dismays spilling over the top of her.

Images of Ryan, unconscious and unrecognizable, lodged in her head.

In a corner, Seth and Summer whisper periodically to each other, but keep their distance, give her space.

When minutes later, the nice southern nurse wobbles into the room, her face full of sympathy, followed by a somber doctor, Kirsten instantly understands why they are here.

It's far too soon for Ryan's surgery to be over.

The sudden presence of the doctor and nurse can only mean one thing.

She's gambled with Ryan's life and lost.

Before the two hospital personnel can reach her, Kirsten is already sobbing quietly, instinctively backing her chair against the wall, trying to escape the words that she knows are about to slap her across the face.

It's only in the last second, as the nurse calls her sweetheart and pats her on the shoulder and the doctor pulls up a chair beside her, and starts mentioning words like blood clot and acute subdural hematoma, that Kirsten realizes that the man telling her, "I am so very sorry, Mrs. Cohen," isn't one of Ryan's doctors, but Sandy's.

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In the fall, Seth packs one bag after another and loads up the Rover with everything he'll need for his freshman year, including Summer, and heads north along the coast for Berkeley.

It's his way of honoring his father.

But Ryan still can't effectively use his right arm and he still has therapy and still needs pain pills sometimes to even get out of bed and no matter how hard he tries, he can't seem to come to terms with anything, so he stays behind, in Newport, with Kirsten.

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He wonders sometimes if he might be made of cake because everyday, he feels himself crumbling, leaving little bits of himself strewn about the Cohens' home.

He starts each morning off in Sandy's office, with a hot cup of coffee, sitting at Sandy's desk, wishing that if someone had to have died that night, it would have been him instead of his foster father.

His arm is almost back to the way it used to be, the last corrective cast in a series of three, sawed off in mid-August, the remaining few painful sessions of physical therapy eventually concluded.

Ryan still can't remember the accident, no matter how hard he concentrates. By the time he truly woke up in the ICU, finally breathing on his own, finally kicking a days long post-operative infection, finally becoming aware and able to process what was happening, Sandy had been buried for almost a week and Kirsten and Seth had already rounded the tenuous corner of denial.

Had already begun the steep decent into acceptance without him.

For weeks after Seth leaves, Ryan putters aimlessly around, doing little things, like lifting weights to get his arm in better shape, and keeping Sandy's surf board waxed and making sure the car has a full tank of gas for Kirsten and silently helping her pack up the remnants of Sandy's life; the small office by the beach, mounds of dusty law books. A draw full of old T-shirts. Sandy's side of the closet.

For months Ryan doesn't know what to do with himself, how to jump-start his life, and he envies Seth for moving on, for starting to heal.

Kirsten helps him fill out an application for USC's winter session.

Marissa mails it.

Ryan pretends, for both their sakes, to care.

"Let's go for a drive," Kirsten suggests one afternoon, taking him to a barren lot, where dozens of little boys run wild on a Boys and Girls Club soccer field, two beat-up goal posts, holes in their nets, sitting at opposite ends.

"I saw on the news that they need an assistant coach."

Ryan scans the sidelines.

Mostly just moms.

Very few dads.

"So I called the head coach and gave him your name."

She reaches into the back seat.

Hands him a soccer ball.

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Ryan thinks he might actually, this time, be waking up for good and that his body might be made of pure power.

He thinks maybe he's electricity flowing through a cable, sizzling and crackling with potential energy.

He rockets past one little boy and then another and then another and then another, constantly rediscovering how good it feels to fill his lungs with air and run, and sprint, and bolt, and jab, and weave.

He teases them with his fancy footwork, taunting them to catch him and they all call out his name, waving goodbye as they climb into their mothers' cars to go home and sometimes, on certain nights, long after practice is over, when he's alone and removing markers and other equipment off the field, sometimes, if he blocks out everything else and stands silent and closes his eyes, sometimes he can still see Sandy standing over his hospital bed, quietly telling him, "Don't worry about it Ryan, I'm right here."

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The End

I wrote this back in October and posted on my LJ, but didn't bother to post it here because there were a few other stories at that time that killed off Sandy. No one has off'd him in a while...to the best of my knowledge...so, I thought it safe.


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